<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Fatima',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'Written in <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span> by <a href="https://y.st./">Alexand(er|ra) Yst</a>, finalised on 2018-09-12',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<h2>Scenario</h2>
<p>
	We are introduced to a woman by the name of Fatima.
	She works fifty hours a week, and between her day job and caring for her two children, she has almost no time to relax.
	Even with how many hours she gets in on the clock, she doesn&apos;t make enough money to buy healthy foods, and resorts to buying cheap, processed foods, which get her and her children by.
	She&apos;s a single parent, so there&apos;s no partner for her to depend on, either to help bring in more money or to care for the children and give Fatima some relief.
	We&apos;re told that Fatima doesn&apos;t smoke, but only so it can be mentioned that she can&apos;t even afford to.
</p>
<p>
	Fatima suffers from long-term fatigue, as well as occasional chest pains.
	However, she cannot afford to go see a medical professional for help.
	She ends up fainting and waking up at the hospital, where they tell her she has hypertension.
</p>
<p>
	We&apos;re asked to walk through the steps of her decent and examine the psychological stages she likely goes through.
</p>
<h2>Initial thoughts</h2>
<p>
	At first, I thought she&apos;d brought this on herself.
	She chose to have children.
	If she didn&apos;t have the time and the money for children, only poor decision making would result in children.
	Choosing to have children you don&apos;t have the resources for is self-destructive to yourself and unfair to the children.
	Yes, accidents happen, but abortion is always an option if it&apos;s needed.
</p>
<p>
	However, after rereading the scenario, I came to realise Fatima could have been (and likely was) a victim of an unforeseen situation arising.
	She&apos;s a single parent.
	She <strong>*could*</strong> have taken on children via adoption, artificial insemination or casual sex while single, which would have been a terrible idea.
	However, more likely, she had a partner in the past.
	The couple could have adopted or used a sperm bank while with a loving partner.
	If the partner had been the opposite sex, they could have conceived children together naturally.
	Whatever the situation, if the partner is no linger in the picture due to a break-up, divorce, or death, Fatima could have been left with more than she could handle.
</p>
<p>
	At least Fatima is being responsible as far as cigarettes go.
	Many people in tough situations smoke even though they can&apos;t afford to.
	They give up basic necessities, such as food, to pay for their smokes.
	Fatima, on the other hand, is avoiding cigarettes and using the money to pay for what food she can afford, which she eats with her children.
</p>
<p>
	We can assume from the fact that she can&apos;t afford to see a doctor that she has no medical insurance; her employer doesn&apos;t provide it and she can&apos;t afford it herself.
	If her employer isn&apos;t providing insurance, we can assume she probably has a poor job.
	She probably has a low wage, further making her situation grim.
	These sorts of jobs are often quite demanding, too.
	And they don&apos;t allow overtime (over forty hours per week).
	She&apos;s likely working multiple jobs to get those hours.
	It&apos;s no wonder she has perpetual fatigue: she can&apos;t afford good nutrition, she&apos;s overworked (both on and off the clock), and her working conditions are likely very stressful.
	She likely writes off the fatigue because the causes are so obvious, and from experience, I can tell you it&apos;s really easy to write off intermittent pain as well.
	If the pain isn&apos;t constant, you just wait for it to pass and move on.
	When it&apos;s not currently hurting, you forget it hurts at all until it comes back.
</p>
<p>
	She likely panicked when she found herself in the hospital.
	I know I would have in her situation.
	And it wouldn&apos;t be because of my dire health, either.
	Back before I had insurance, I dreaded the need for medical attention - I couldn&apos;t afford it!
	I always knew that if someone called an ambulance on me and I was in a coherent state when it arrived, I&apos;d refuse to go along to avoid going further into debt.
	The hospital fees would be worse, but I was just thinking about the cost of the ambulance ride itself.
	I just didn&apos;t have room in the budget for it.
</p>
<h2>Additional parameters</h2>
<p>
	I&apos;m going to give Fatima the benefit of the doubt and assume she was in a committed relationship, but fell out of that relationship somehow.
	Choosing to have children even though the world is already overpopulated is a selfish choice, so I&apos;ll assume she and her loving partner decided to adopt.
	For reasons stated in the last section (related to lack of insurance), we have to assume Fatima now holds at least two jobs, all of which are low-paying.
	So again, giving her the benefit of the doubt, I&apos;ll assume her role had been to care for the children and her partner&apos;s role was to hold a job and make money.
	Once her partner was out of the picture, she would have been hit with grief in one form or another, depending on how the loss occurred (a breakup versus a death, for example).
	Meanwhile, while dealing with the emotional damage, she would have had to take whatever job she could get quickly so she could continue to pay rent, pay for food, and pay for basic utilities such as electricity and running water.
	This need for a quick job is likely what led her to work a couple low-paying jobs, and now, she doesn&apos;t have the time or energy to look for a better-paying, less stressful job that takes less out of her.
</p>
<h2>Fatima&apos;s mental health</h2>
<p>
	We can assume losing her partner took a toll on her emotionally.
	Even if it was a breakup and not a death, she would have had her heart broken.
	As our textbook tells us (Ogden, 2017), mental health impacts our physical health.
	Normally, people are able to suffer the heartache of loss, then move on.
	However, she then has to take on a couple demanding jobs to cover the bills.
	If she&apos;d had time to ease into this or she&apos;d been the breadwinner all along, she&apos;d&apos;ve been better prepared, but this wasn&apos;t the case.
	She had no time to recover from the stress of heartache, and immediately has to take on more stress.
	This would have been the beginning of her decent.
	From here, she continues working herself ragged, and through poor eating habits caused by her newfound situation, she is left unable to recharge.
	Her taxed mental health leads to decreased physical health, and her poor physical health takes a toll on her mental health, leading to a downward spiral.
	Eventually, she burns out and faints, needing to go to the hospital.
</p>
<h2>This week&apos;s reading material</h2>
<p>
	As I mentioned in the forum this week, the external website we were directed to for two of our assigned readings was denying me service.
	I tried a few times each day, but the site never would send me the pages we needed, so I was only able to read one of the assigned readings: specifically, the one hosted on the university&apos;s own website.
	The professor said to let them know if the problem persisted, but they never got back to me and we&apos;re out of time now.
	I apologise for the things I haven&apos;t taken into account due to being unable to read the material, but it can&apos;t be helped.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Ogden, J. (2017). The Psychology of Health and Illness: An Open Access Course. Retrieved from <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf"><code>https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf</code></a>
	</p>
</div>
END
);
